Thursday, September 15, 2011

Jacobs

“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” is a story that shows a side of slavery that most people do not want to see or hear. It talks about a woman’s experience and the horrors that came along with being a female slave. This story paints a very clear yet very disturbing side of slavery that many people do not want to see. Her story shows her life and what choices she had to make to get to where she wanted to be.

I feel like this reading reminded me of Douglass, which I am reading in another class. In Douglass every time females are mentioned it is in a horrible way. Douglas is much more in detail and holds nothing back. It paints very vivid pictures. Both books talk about beauty being a curse for a slave. This picture is clearly seen in this reading. If you were a pretty slave your owner wanted you and that meant that his wife hated you. This was not easy for females. I can see where what is supposed to be a good thing turns out being a curse.

I had a hard time understanding what she meant in the very beginning about not judging a slave female the same way as a free person. While i do not know where she is coming from as a slave, i still feel like i am not sure about this. I understand the things she was put through were horrible! But I'm not sure what she means by the beginning statements.

I feel like this work also reminds me of Ben Franklin because like he used letters to gain credibility she got some people to say that everything in her story was true. She did this to gain credibility, that way people would be more apt to read and believe what they were reading. It also would show some people a side that most did not want to talk about! This writing also probable made a lot of people upset.

The over all theme of this is the corruption of slavery and what it does to everyone. It does not just hurt the slaves it also has a impact on everyone involved. It can make a person change into something they are not and bring out the worse in all humans. Slavery was bad for everyone involved!